Agencies say needs outweigh resources for Rockford’s homeless, hungry

ROCKFORD — Agencies work every day to help lift people out of homelessness, but the needs outweigh the available resources and services in our community.

That’s a common story in social services but still a necessary point communicated to a room full of people gathered Tuesday afternoon as part of National Hunger & Homelessness Awareness Week.

Nearly 100 people attended the event, which was sponsored by the Rockford, Winnebago and Boone Counties Continuum of Care — a task force on homelessness. The group is comprised of more than 30 nonprofit agencies, government entities and educational institutions that offered an update on local outreach efforts.

The group shared these sobering statistics:

Rockford MELD housed, fed and clothed 41 mothers and 32 children in the last year, but 378 requests for shelter or housing were made, and 195 mothers and children were turned away because of lack of space.

Rock River Valley Pantry provided nearly 1.1 million pounds of food last year to more than 7,000 people in the community. Forty percent of those people were children, and 6 percent were 65 and older

Rock House Kids serves about 150 kids a week who are homeless or hungry.

Rockford Rescue Mission provides lodging for an average of 161 people a night and serves three meals a day to about 150 people. They also provided medical, dental, chiropractic and vision appointments for 1,057 people.

Grace Lutheran Church and GPS Faith Community have seen 240 new families in Loves Park and Machesney Park in 2013 and have served 4,394 people so far this year at their food pantry.

Crusader Community Health has offered medical services to more than 1,500 homeless guests.

Sherry Pitney, executive director of the Rockford Rescue Mission, said the mission has turned away 140 people just in the past three months. She said if they’re not staying at the mission, many of those people end up staying outside, which gets more difficult in the winter.

Pitney said needs have increased because of the slow economic recovery, but also because people in the community face domestic violence and other interpersonal conflicts.

Agencies are also seeing increased needs in the younger (ages 18 to 30) and senior populations, said Kay Larrick, executive director of Carpenter’s Place.

“People would ask if I thought the recession or the downturn in the economy was affecting Carpenter’s Place, and initially I said ‘no’ because I said the guests with whom we primarily work are chronically homeless,” Larrick said. “However, that really turned a corner in the last couple of years.

“We have amazing agencies providing great services. To me, it almost seems like we don’t have the level of services. Like many of us provide housing, yet there just isn’t enough housing to meet the need.”

Melissa Westphal: 815-987-1341; mwestphal@rrstar.com; @mlwestphal

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